High-rise in San Francisco's Parkmerced housing complex.
Parkmerced was designed for the car-centric culture of the post-war period. The ambitious expansion and renovation submitted to city planners last week is tailored to the so-called green generation. In fact, its designers are billing it as one of the most environmentally progressive projects moving forward today. Over a 20-year period, it would take the entire development off of PG&E's power grid, drawing 100 percent of its energy from onsite wind turbines and other low-emission sources. It would add 5,700 homes that will consume 62 percent less energy and 42 percent less water than existing units, many of which will eventually be replaced.
Mark Costantini / The Chronicle
Photo taken on 1/11/08, in San Francisco, CA, USA

Photo: Mark Costantini, The Chronicle

High-rise in San Francisco's Parkmerced housing complex....

Image 2 of 6

High-rise in San Francisco's Parkmerced housing complex. Parkmerced was designed for the car-centric culture of the post-war period. The ambitious expansion and renovation submitted to city planners last week is tailored to the so-called green generation. In fact, its designers are billing it as one of the most environmentally progressive projects moving forward today. Over a 20-year period, it would take the entire development off of PG&E's power grid, drawing 100 percent of its energy from onsite wind turbines and other low-emission sources. It would add 5,700 homes that will consume 62 percent less energy and 42 percent less water than existing units, many of which will eventually be replaced. Mark Costantini / The Chronicle Photo taken on 1/11/08, in San Francisco, CA, USA MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT

Landscaped traffic circle on Gonzalez in San Francisco's Parkmerced housing complex. Parkmerced was designed for the car-centric culture of the post-war period. The ambitious expansion and renovation submitted to city planners last week is tailored to the so-called green generation. In fact, its designers are billing it as one of the most environmentally progressive projects moving forward today. Over a 20-year period, it would take the entire development off of PG&E's power grid, drawing 100 percent of its energy from onsite wind turbines and other low-emission sources. It would add 5,700 homes that will consume 62 percent less energy and 42 percent less water than existing units, many of which will eventually be replaced. Mark Costantini / The Chronicle Photo taken on 1/11/08, in San Francisco, CA, USA MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT

Photo: Mark Costantini

Landscaped traffic circle on Gonzalez in San Francisco's Parkmerced...

Image 4 of 6

in San Francisco's Parkmerced housing complex. Parkmerced was designed for the car-centric culture of the post-war period. The ambitious expansion and renovation submitted to city planners last week is tailored to the so-called green generation. In fact, its designers are billing it as one of the most environmentally progressive projects moving forward today. Over a 20-year period, it would take the entire development off of PG&E's power grid, drawing 100 percent of its energy from onsite wind turbines and other low-emission sources. It would add 5,700 homes that will consume 62 percent less energy and 42 percent less water than existing units, many of which will eventually be replaced. Mark Costantini / The Chronicle Photo taken on 1/11/08, in San Francisco, CA, USA MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT

The owners of San Francisco's Parkmerced want to add nearly 5,700 homes to the World War II-era rental housing complex, an ambitious renovation that could rank as one of the greenest in the country.

Over 20 years, the developer says, the minimum $1.2 billion project would take the 115-acre property off the power grid by employing wind turbines and other low-emission energy sources, slash water consumption through improved plumbing and recycling, and halve tenants' automobile use by, among other things, adding public transportation options.

"I almost consider it a moral obligation in a project of this size to be responsible and do whatever we can do to help confront the problem of climate change," said Craig Hartman, lead architect on the project and partner with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP.

Ultimately, however, the plan will test competing priorities for which San Francisco is famous: its embrace of ecological causes and its aversion to denser development.

As is typical with any big proposal in the city, the leaders of neighborhood groups are already lining up in opposition. Efforts are under way to establish Parkmerced as a historic landmark, a designation that would severely curtail development.

"To me, it's a real disaster of a proposal," said Aaron Goodman, a tenant, architect and vice president of the Parkmerced Residents' Organization. "It's going to drastically affect the feel of that community."

Density debate

Environmentalists and planners say the proposal for the complex south of San Francisco State University is a paragon of 21st century urban development.

As envisioned today, the renovation would seek to cut energy consumption by 62 percent and water use by 42 percent in each new unit by installing cogeneration systems that take advantage of the heat given off during electricity production plus highly efficient appliances and fixtures, along with irrigation systems that reuse certain wastewater. It would discourage the use of cars by rerouting the Muni M-Line into the complex, adding a low-emission BART shuttle, providing pedestrian and bicycle paths, and opening a grocery store and other retail space. It would create parks, wetlands and an organic farm.

Another sustainable piece of the Parkmerced proposal is the one likely to draw the greatest opposition: density.

A tenet of modern urban planning holds that by increasing housing within city boundaries, encroachment into undeveloped areas declines, and the efficiency and attractiveness of public transportation improves - all of which leads to less pollution.

At the completion of the project, there would be around 8,900 units, nearly triple the 3,221 there today. The new housing would be a mix of for-sale and rental units, both townhomes and mid-rises. None of the buildings would be higher than the 13-story buildings there now.

"Any environmental planner in the country will tell you that in order to have a city that represents the values that San Francisco wants, namely affordability, the services, the walk-ability and the open space, you're going to have to have density," said Jared Blumenfeld, director of San Francisco's Department of the Environment.

Stellar Management of New York is spearheading the project. The company bought Parkmerced with Rockpoint Group, a real estate investor with offices in Boston and San Francisco, in 2005.

Seth Mallen, vice president of construction at Stellar, said the company has promised to do everything it can to accommodate current tenants. Construction will be done in phases to ensure there is new space for residents before old buildings are razed. Also, tenants will be able to move into new apartments for the price they have been paying. Rent control would carry over to the new unit.

Earlier this month, the company submitted the plan to the San Francisco Planning Department, where it will undergo what's likely to be a multiple-year review of its environmental impacts. The developer hopes to complete the planning and review process by late 2009 and could begin construction as early as 2010, project spokesman P.J. Johnston said.

'Fix the mistakes'

While the proposal seems tailored to the green generation, the housing complex originally was designed for the car-centered culture of the postwar period. It was one of eight similar rental projects developed by Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. around the country beginning in the 1940s.

Planned for returning veterans and blue-collar workers, each was designed to feel like a suburban community near an urban center, with wide streets and culs-de-sac that allowed automobiles to navigate between the properties without stopping. In many ways, the original design reflects the worst tendencies of a troubled urban planning era, according to Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, a public policy think tank. The streets don't accommodate pedestrians, housing is a car trip away from retail, and the neighborhood is geared exclusively to lower- and middle-class renters, he said.

"It's not very often we get to fix the mistakes of postwar planning," Metcalf said. "In many ways, I think, what this adds up to is integrating Parkmerced with San Francisco in a way it never was before."

Congestion concerns

The challenge for the developer will be finding support in one of San Francisco's few single-family home neighborhoods for building nearly 5,700 housing units. That's the second-largest new residential project currently being proposed in the city, behind the 8,500 to 10,000 units being proposed at Candlestick Point and just ahead of the 5,500 units envisioned for Treasure Island.

In 2003, a neighborhood group scuttled a plan to build fewer than 300 apartments, 85 of them for seniors, a few blocks north of Parkmerced.

Goodman of the tenants' organization said it's the very openness of the housing complex - the lack of density - that makes it a unique place in San Francisco worth preserving.

"In the Mission (District), you look around, and it's a concrete wasteland," he said. "When you walk around Parkmerced, you don't feel like you're in an urban area."

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, who represents the district that encompasses Parkmerced, echoed this concern and raised others. His chief worry is that the Parkmerced project in combination with other area development proposals would exacerbate the congestion in the neighborhood's already crowded streets, particularly 19th Avenue.

"We're going to need to force these developers to recognize, as a whole, there will be a substantial cumulative impact, and that impact is going to need to be understood and addressed before any can go forward," he said.

Landmark status

The developer could face an obstacle on another front as well.

Goodman has submitted Parkmerced to the city's landmarks designation program. If ultimately approved by the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board and other city bodies, any construction or alterations would require review, and substantial demolition is unlikely to be allowed.

Parkmerced's landscape was designed by Thomas Dolliver Church, whom one local preservationist calls the "father of modern landscape architecture."

Andrew Wolfram, president of the Northern California chapter of Docomomo - which works to preserve important examples of modern design - said Parkmerced represents an unusual work for Church, an architect who focused on private gardens, because of its large scale and public accessibility. Wolfram said the interconnected courtyards, curving paths and use of light and shade provide the sensation of living within a park.

"That's an unusual feature and something I think we should try to preserve," he said. "It seems like they're hiding, under the veil of green design, the desire to triple the size of that neighborhood."

But the suggestion that Parkmerced is architecturally important earns curious looks from others in the design and planning community.

"It's such a transparently cynical move for the NIMBYs to all of a sudden decide this is a treasured landmark," Metcalf said. "Nobody in their right mind would believe that's the real reason they're doing this."

In Bay Area: Local architects offer visions of San Francisco's future. C1

Plan for Parkmerced

Highlights through year 10 of the proposal to redevelop the Parkmerced housing complex:

Years 1 to 5:

Construct housing on vacant land along the west and north ends of the property.

Install first renewable power sources, such as wind and solar, and efficient cogeneration systems.

Start low-emission shuttle to Daly City BART Station.

Open new traffic connections to Lake Merced Boulevard.

Begin building filtration system that allows storm water to bypass the city sewer.

Remove and replace some housing stock.

Years 6 to 10:

Realign San Francisco Municipal Railway's M-Line to provide a covered stop within the complex at a new neighborhood center that will feature a grocery store.